Crash Around Me
by FullMetalCrayon
Summary: They entertwined; fire and tears coming to an abrupt holding- and year after year, they started to die. Abstract EdWin. Post-Manga


Something that's been chilling on my harddrive for a while.

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><p>His coat was fire and her coat was tears. They etched the memories of the universe into stained sands with the power to shape the world.<p>

This knowledge fell on blind eyes- they were too caught up in being dead and the colors of the sun that no one stopped to notice what took form under the rocky earth.

She was the grime left over after the windshield wipers left their marks; unwanted bits that clung to sanity by the whim of Lady Luck. He was gold and crimson (lately, she saw him as polychromatic- that implied fire, and fire he was), all the colors of the world that really amounted to nothing once you got down to it.

He was broken and a failure _(No! Alphonse!), _but he hid it carefully under a well-crafted rough exterior calloused by years of self-doubt and blood. He let his perfected mask slip under the roughest conditions, and only around her- his cloudy sky, his raindrop in the desert- but she never noticed. She kept her back turned.

Because do tears quell your sadness, or do they merely signify it?

Is that a question you're comfortable asking?

They weren't so they let it be; ignored like the twinge of misery he felt at being called 'Fullmetal'- (That's my brother, you assholes- Are you mocking Al?), ignored it like the nagging sensation of jealousy in his mind when he saw the Colonel and Riza together (Someday, I want love like that, Colonel).

Same as how she ignored his pleas for help masked under cries of anger.

She looked into his eyes and saw humanity curled in the palms of their golden irises. He looked into hers and saw the sky- beautiful, lovely, and a semblance of normalcy, but never quite close enough to touch- and an unnatural hue of blue that reminded him of sheep and turned earth and a mother's gentle touch (Sometimes he couldn't remember what it felt like.)

She was too consumed by being sad at unseen forces and he was too busy lying about believing in them. (They didn't deserve to die! They were just doctors!) (He stares at the night sky often and wonders which star is Trisha.) They were hot and cold air- the mantle under a volcano; a disaster just bubbling at the surface- gentle touches stolen in the heat of misery and stolen glances in the moonlight as she wept.

Tears and fire brush on occasion with terrible, terrible results. (I'm just trying to keep him in line!) (I can take care of myself. C'mon, Al). They wrote separate stories, went their separate ways, eventually meeting back up to scratch them hesitantly into the history of Amestris. (I never thought we'd save the world, Win, not really.) (You saved us, Ed! I bet my automail had something to do with it..) They masked their affections under the veil of siblinghood, never stopping in wonderment to realize what had been rumbling under the surface ever since they were children.

Perhaps we really are only what others think of us; does it matter who you are at your soul if you refuse to share it?

Is that another question you'd rather dodge?

The years passed- lives were saved, innocent children were killed, a father reunited with his wayward children- but they left her behind.

Some part of her was snagged someplace and refused to let go. He tried to coax her out (C'mon, Winry, don't you want to go to Rush Valley? We're gonna go visit Paninya!) But really, did anyone expect any less of Edward Elric than to get his brother's body back to normal and quite possibly save the universe on his way? Isn't he that true to his internal fire?

Why should he expect the girl of tears to be any less true to herself, then?

(I'll give you half my life if you give me yours. Equivalent exchange, right?)

(The kids came faster than expected.)

People in Central corresponded frequently, Roy Mustang especially- (The idea of Fullmetal having children baffled him to no end.) They visited often, the kids played together- (They moved to Central for a brief period with Al and Mei); a picturesque storybook ending.

Something never quite clicked.

Unraveled edges spun farther and farther in opposite directions with every passing day, until there was nothing quite left to mend (He felt her slipping quietly away from their room at night, but chose to keep quiet. He felt her distance but ignored it, like she had subconsciously ignored his pleas for help so many years ago.)

It rained the day she'd finally had enough.

The air at the cemetery swirled on his tongue and left a melancholic aftertaste; he donned a red coat (trademarks never fully waste away when you're an Elric) and picked some lilacs from a wood he'd once shared with a little brother and a blonde haired girl. (Was it really so long ago we visited this same cemetery and decided to bring back our mom? Thirty years, Alphonse? No, it can't be…)

The grave of his mother stood freshly decorated with flowers; Mei had been passing through and decided it needed to be spruced up. It looked too sad and dilapidated. (Mei, it's a grave.)

The air thickened with rain and he allowed himself a fraction of a smile; she would probably enjoy the downpour, wouldn't she? (Sometimes he felt like even after forty years together he didn't know her any more than he knew Fuery; they liked each other, and interacted on a regular basis, but there was no relationship development.)

His girl of tears and all thing metal lay under the ground beside Trisha, and he wiped sweat and mist from eyes absently as he recalled the cold nights Alphonse and him spent in this awful place just wanting to be close to their mother. Funny, how old sins haunt you at times like these.

The black void of death enveloped his fractioned, divided mind as he calculated the formula for human transmutation, only to gag as his abdomen clinched in revulsion. Hadn't these hardship-ridden years taught him anything? It wasn't like he was an alchemists anymore, anyway.

(Sometimes he made himself sick he was so pathetic.)

He gingerly laid his lilacs down on freshly turned soil; he didn't want to disturb her. (It was easier to pretend she was sleeping.) Sheepishly, he realized as he stared down at the grave that he didn't know if she would want him here or not (He didn't try to save her, not once), but this was for his closure and he wasn't going to leave quite yet.

The soaking drops of a first summer rain dripped down his golden tresses after a time of just staring at the headstone and he turned abruptly, using a bright coat to wipe dulled honey eyes (He told himself he just didn't want to cry because then he wouldn't be able to see on his way home.)

It would rain on the day he lost his girl of tears, his distant best friend and wife. The day he decided to take his chances with the Truth and heaven or hell or nirvana or whatever the hell is up there and join her. It was his penance.

How fitting that he would die in the rain, like how it rained when they attempted to bring their mother back.

The universe was just so fucking fitting sometimes.

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><p>Thanks for reading.<p>

I have a favor to ask of all of you.. I'm running into a rut with my writings and I can't seem to overcome this writer's block. Please, for the love of all cupcakes, will you go onto my profile and vote for what you'd like to see me write about? Perhaps it will get me started..

I hope.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed!

~FMC


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